Artist: Alisson Schmitt
Exhibition title: Karmamousse
Venue: Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain, Brest, France
Date: February 2– April 27, 2019
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain
Alisson Schmitt solo exhibition’s title sounds like the brand name of one of these Ayurvedic carpets you can shop at Nature & Découvertes.
Playing with marketing methods and strategies, the young artist sets the scene for a new situation at the heart of her practice, which for several years has problematized, used and abused the codes of what is commonly referred to as “the well-being market”.
Karmamousse at Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain is somehow a fusion (in the culinary sense of the term) of two iconic fields of the new age consumerist universe – Hatha Yoga (very popular in the Western world more for its physical virtues than for its spiritual ones) and the Tarot de Marseille (or more precisely its major arcanas) – chosen above all for their philosophical and practical qualities.
The artist invites us as participants to a scenario she made up. The exhibition becomes a space to play and practice where the Tarot de Marseille arcanas take place on yoga mats (well, not all of them, only those traditionally wearing leggings), where is screened a docu-drama featuring the Temperance, the Devil and a dancer who lived in India. All that in the throbbing light of the flames.
Alisson Schmitt, Karmamousse, 2019, exhibition view, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain
Alisson Schmitt, Karmamousse, 2019, exhibition view, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain
Alisson Schmitt, Karmamousse, 2019, exhibition view, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain
Alisson Schmitt, Karmamousse, 2019, exhibition view, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain
Alisson Schmitt, Karmamousse, 2019, exhibition view, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain
Alisson Schmitt, Karmamousse, 2019, exhibition view, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain
Alisson Schmitt, Karmamousse, 2019, exhibition view, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain
Alisson Schmitt, Karmamousse, 2019, exhibition view, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain
Alisson Schmitt, Karmamousse, 2019, exhibition view, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain
Alisson Schmitt, Karmamousse, 2019, exhibition view, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain